[minhtam1638]

Originally Posted by wontaek

There is a discussion of running both female division and male division concurrently in Best Moe Tournament. This should mean that when Best Moe starts, you will have male only groups and female only groups to vote on. Please give me any opinion about this proposal as soon as possible so I may relay them before the discussion is over.

Wontaek, good luck on translating this... 1250 dang words...

Spoiler for ISML's response:

Well... as ISML commissioner, I am fully aware that the anime population that even bothers to care about this phenomenon called Saimoe contributes to less than 1% of the total population, so us Saimoe buddies have to stick together. Nonetheless, I know Eundong and I aren't necessarily on good terms, even though our relationship has slightly improved, but hopefully my advice can be relayed with success.

Suffice to say, from what I hear, what Eundong has been going through throughout the Korea Super Best Moe tournament, I went through throughout the six-month period of the ISML regular season. Quite frankly, I've sacrificed too much to start up an International Saimoe as well as doing the advertising on it solo that it has nearly led to my self-destruction, and had some of the current ISML staff not pick up my slack and turned on my back, I would very well much be dead. Henceforth, from what I've learned, you can only do much to your ability and time, and the only way to run a Saimoe tournament non-stop is to get the personnel you need in order to relieve stress. The only way the administrator of a Saimoe tournament can do that is to give out the work to those staff members you trust can do the work for you and not worry about every single little detail those staff members occasionally get wrong.

In fact, almost throughout the ISML double-elimination championships, I was literally almost never there. I was there when I had the time to do so virtually to only monitor the work that was being done and giving direction to the staff members throughout the tourney. As a result, ISML completed its first year successfully AND I was able to take part in a rehabilitation process that can restore my real life into natural order, such that I was able to participate and complete college courses with confidence that a contest like this would not hold me back. So far, it has virtually worked out well for me, although the two-month "break" that we've had between Fate Testarossa winning her first championship and the nomination phase for the second season did undoubtedly help me restore my life in natural order.

In relation to the matter at hand, unless the AniZone staff increases or moves current staff members to work on Korea Best Moe, I would personally remove one of the divisions, preferably the male division, from the Korea Best Moe schedule entirely, as it not only secures the Korea Best Moe contest that we have come to love, but it also relieves stress for Eundong to make up for the time he has lost due to the influx of the voting population and give him the time to appreciate life outside of Saimoe, as I personally have done. However, I do understand that there are anime fans who do find male anime characters "moe" in their own way, even if all of our definitions do not match each other. So understandably, my proposal above would not make sense to the AniZone administration, but I personally feel that if staff members do not increase, this is the best option available.

The alternate solution would be to either run them separately or run them jointly, which I believe are the two decisions the AniZone staff wishes to choose from. In this case, I believe the best option here is to look at Eundong's current real life schedule and decide not whether to have them run separately or jointly, but when is it the best time for him personally to run a tourney like this. If it turns out that he does indeed have time to run these two contests separately, then I personally feel that by running these two contests separately, Korea Best Moe will have a straight path rather than a fork in a road, and one path does indeed give the contest a sense of direction as to what Korea Best Moe is truly about. However, if there is a huge long term event, such as a vacation with family members or a master's program in said college, then it would be indeed best to run them jointly, despite the fact that it may damper the image of Korea Best Moe to a certain extent because the bottom line is the long term security of Korea Best Moe.

In fact, I've had a lot of feedback from a number of voters to run different kinds of contests in ISML to fill the four or five months in which we didn't have voting periods. While I agreed to implement a new preliminary phase for ISML that would span the months of January and the first half of February, I have virtually said no to almost every other proposal, stating that "while it is a good idea to run that type of thing, the International Saimoe League cannot afford to add these contests as we need to spend non-voting time periods on renovation, decoration, and innovation, and if you are really enthusiastic about it, run the contest yourself, and hopefully ISML may recognize you." While that is indeed true that we need to spend non-voting time periods to prepare for the next year, the backdrop of this is also evident, in that ISML would not cause too much stress to any Staff member in a sense that it affects his or her real life negatively.

Therefore, while my preference as a voter is to run it separately, the smarter decision could and may possibly be to run them jointly. If I was a new voter who started out in ISML trying to participate in other contests, AND I wasn't a hardcore fan of said character, I would probably not participate in Korea Best Moe because the image that I get from looking at the pages in particular, aside from the commenting system, is a dull gray. If a decision is made to run them jointly and during the latter half of the year 2009, the former half may be spent on renovating and redecorating the website in a similar method as the International contest. Then, therefore, Korea Best Moe will not only have the privilege of having the massive participation on their side, but it will also have a more designed image of their own that may attract new voters along the way.

To conclude, my take on the issue is this. Korea Best Moe has had much success for the past two and a half years, but with these voting numbers on a high, it is time to take a step back and not run the contest for the next two to six months. The time spent in this relaxation period can give Eundong time to reassess the successes and failures of not only Korea Best Moe but also his own real life, can be spent to upgrade servers to a status in which more data can be stored to be accessed, and can lead to a better image by use of new graphics and design on the website. If this decision is enacted, then Korea Best Moe will have a much better chance of being successful for the next five years and perhaps even longer, and someday anime companies will make decisions based on candidate performance in Korea Best Moe as well as the other Saimoe contests. I wish AniZone best of luck on continuing Korea Best Moe and I hope greater success looms in the future.